The best place to start saving energy is at the top…Your Roof!
When it’s time for a new roof, you also have an opportunity. An opportunity to reduce your monthly power bill!
The Roof of your Sacramento area home is like a lid to your home. It needs to do two things:
- Prevent interior heated and cooled air from escaping.
- Keep heat gain to a minimum
Speaking of the roof, we really mean everything above your ceiling. The attic and the temperature of the attic is our primary concern.
If we can keep the attic as cool as possible in these hot summer months we can save a bundle on energy.
These tactics can be applied with all types of roofing: Asphalt Shingle, Tile, Metal, TPO, etc.
These Four Keys to controlling Attic Temperatures will help you Slash your Energy Bill!
Lighter Color Shingles The color of your roof is very important to energy efficiency. Lighter colors reflect light and will not heat up or absorb heat from the sun like dark colors do. Dark slate colored roofs look nice but they could really be costing you a fortune! That nearly black dark gray absorbs a lot of energy from the sun. It gets hotter than heck and that heat radiates into the attic. When that surface is hot, the attic is hot and the hot air has no place to go. Light colored shingles and other roofing surfaces reflect light and heat. A cooler surface will not radiate as much heat into the attic.
Radiant Barrier Radiant barriers come is several different varieties. The most common in roofing is incorporated into the deck surface. The deck or decking is the material below your roofing paper and is usually OSB (oriented strand board) or plywood. Decking with a radiant barrier will have a sheet of reflective aluminum on the underside (facing into the attic) and what it does is reflect any of the energy absorbed by the shingles back outward in order to further reduce heat gain. GAF Cool Roofing Page
Ventilation Any roof that has attic space under it will benefit from ventilation. What you really want is for your attic to breathe. The best way to accomplish this is through a combination of soffit venting and ridge venting. Because heat rises, the built up heat will rise to the rafters and build up a lot of energy. It’s not uncommon for attics to reach temperatures of almost 200 degrees! Installing ridge vents will allow the heated air to escape. In order to make ridge venting efficient you need to provide a fresh air feed. This is provided by the soffit vents and the rising and escaping hot air in your attic will create a vacuum that sucks cooler air into the soffits to replace the escaping hot air. This can reduce attic temperatures quite dramatically.
Insulation Your air conditioner is working constantly on hot days to try to reduce the interior temperature. If that cooled air is being warmed by radiant energy from your ceiling, you a/c will have to work that much harder and your energy bill will skyrocket. Adding insulation in the attic will further reduce the effects of radiant energy coming from the attic.
That’s it! Those are the most important considerations you need to address if you want to save money on your energy bill. Your roofing materials decisions can really help you slash your energy use! Let the experts at Yancey Home Improvements – Roofing Sacramento provide expert advice along with a personalized custom roof quote. Call or complete a request form today!
All Service Areas